Mass schedule at LGH Saints Campus revised

LOWELL -- Lowell General Hospital has rescheduled the times of some of its religious services at the Saints Campus temporarily while a priest is away on vacation.

But one change will become permanent: the Saints Campus will no longer hold Sunday Mass in its second-floor chapel.

According to Angela Strunk, spokeswoman for LGH, the Saints campus will offer communion services to patients Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at noon for the next six weeks.

As of Jan. 9., Rev. Nicholas Sannella, pastor of the nearby Immaculate Conception Church, will offer Mass Thursday and Friday at noon throughout that same time period.

The temporary cancellation of regular Mass from Monday through Wednesday is because Rev. Raju Muringayil, who typically celebrates the daily Mass, will be on vacation until the end of February.

"The main reason (for the rescheduling) is because I'm leaving for a vacation to India that I take every other year," said Muringayil.

The hospital will go back to having a noon weekday Mass upon Muringayil's return in March.

Saints will also stop holding Mass on weekends. Strunk said the difficulty of scheduling priests for Sunday Masses was a consideration for the decision. Muringayil already works a full week presiding over weekday masses and serving as the chaplain at Saints.

Strunk also said that the group that came to Sunday Mass was mostly comprised of community members, whom the hospital felt could support a local parish like the Immaculate Conception.

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"As we bench-marked ourselves against other Catholic hospitals, it's not common to offer Mass services seven days a week, so we're still providing more on a weekly basis," said Strunk. "It's a balance of providing the best possible spiritual services while also leveraging the great facility next door for when we can't offer Mass."

Terry Donilon, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, said the archdiocese does not officially direct hospitals to funnel patients or their families to their local parishes instead of hospital Masses.

"If a parishioner is part of a parish, we would expect that they would go to their parish for services," said Donilon. "But chapels are very important to hospitals for people who are sick, so that's not something that we would or should apply pressure to. That's (LGH's) decision."

Muringayil said those who attend the weekend Masses were sad to hear news of the cancellation when he delivered it to them Sunday, Jan. 5.

"The Masses are convenient not just for the patients in wheelchairs and staff that come, but also the ones that watch on the closed-circuit televisions in the hospital," said Muringayil.

One attendee, Joanne Daly of Lowell, said she has gone to Sunday Mass at the Saints Campus for more than 25 years.

"There was usually a good 25 to 30 people there -- it was like a big family," said Daly, 70. "I'll probably have to go to St. Margaret's or the Immaculate now, but I prefer going to the hospital because it feels like I've been going there forever."

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